The international projection of CamBio goes beyond the European context, with actions to take place in several continents
CamBio, the Campus of International Excellence (CEI) on Environment, Bio-diversity and Climate Change, will start operations in America with the creation of the Transnational Campus Ibérico. This means that CamBio will have a consolidated presence in three continents, Europe, Africa and America.
This campus will be coordinated from Portugal. Several Portuguese universities and research agencies will contribute to CamBio’s leap to Latin America. This will make CamBio, which includes the participation of the seven youngest Andalusian universities and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), present in three continents, with European initiatives on a continental scale, such as LifeWatch, and the Transnational Campus Estrecho de Gibraltar, present in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
The project, coordinated by the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Seville, thus reinforces its drive towards internationalisation with the target of increasing the partners’ academic offer by adding international and joint degrees. Transnational education especially favours the mobility of students, lecturers and administration staff. Equally, transnational campuses facilitate the creation of networks between researchers and partner companies and institutions, promoting creativity and innovation for development.
In the words of the CEI CamBio’s director, Pilar Paneque, ‘with this, we will not only contribute to the European Space for Higher Education, but also with the Euro-Mediterranean Space for Higher Education and the Espacio Iberoaméricano del Conocimiento’
The Transnational Campus Ibérico will be coordinated from Portugal but will have a clear projection towards Latin America. The existing relationship between the project’s member universities and Latin America will facilitate the creation of a new network, already endorsed by the universities of Algarve, Aveiro, Évora, Technical of Lisbon y Portucalense Infante D. Henrique, Instituto Nacional de Administración de Portugal, Politécnico de Beja and Politécnico de Setúbal, Grupo de Universidades Iberoamericana de La Rábida (including sixty higher education institutions in Latin America), Universidad de Panamá, Assosaçao Brasileña de Agroecología and Sociedad Científica Latinoamericana de Agroecología, among others.
CamBio’s Transnational Campus Estrecho de Gibraltar, is already in operation and was partially funded with a grant by the Ministerio de Educación 2010 call for CEI projects. In recent months, this campus has extended its operations to Algeria and Tunisia. Centro Mediterráneo Andalusí, directed by political scientist Sami Naïr, is a crucial partner for this transnational project.
This campus has the support of a large number of institutions, such as the universities Hassan II Mohammedia in Casablanca, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah in Fes, Abdelmalek Essaadi in Tánger-Tetúan Ibn Tofail, Sfax and Tunisia, along with the Centre National por la Recherche Scientifique e Tecnique de Marruecos (CNRST), the Centre Mohamed Ali de Recherches d’Études et de Formation (Cemaref), the École Nationale d’Agriculture de Mekneés Agro-pole Olivier, the Institut d’Études et de Recherche Europe-Méditerrannée (Ierem), the Jane Goodall Institute, the Instituto de Estudios para la Paz y la Cooperación (IEPC), Casa Árabe, Casa Mediterráneo, Cátedra Unesco de Resolución de Conflictos, Arco Latino, Fundación Forja XXI, Fundación Migres, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, among others.